Aerosmith

MUSIC - RECORDS

April 30, 1993|By Parry Gettelman, Sentinel Popular Music Critic

*** Aerosmith, Get a Grip (Geffen): Wonder how the folks at CBS are feeling right about now. The record company, Aerosmith's original label, re-signed the band last year for major megabucks. But the guys still had to crank out one more album for Geffen before they became CBS property, and judging from Get a Grip, Aero- smith is starting to run a little low on inspiration.

The group took its sweet time recording this follow-up to 1989's multiplatinum Pump. You can hear it in the production and the arrangements, which are less adventurous than on Pump but deftly combine polish and grit. Bruce Fairbairn, who also helmed Pump and Permanent Vacation, gets great guitar sounds for Joe Perry and Brad Whitford - with sharper edges than on the past two albums. And there are plenty of cool details, such as the James Brown quote at the end of ''Shut Up and Dance,'' a riff purloined from the band's own ''Dream On'' in ''Gotta Love It'' and the funny take on ''Walk This Way'' that kicks off the album.

However, Get a Grip isn't a good candidate for the increasingly popular ''Unplugged'' treatment. Even though the band ditched some songs from initial sessions and went back to write more, there's a lot of filler here. Perry's killer riffs aren't just decoration - they often have to save weak material, particularly on the second half of the album.

Some stormy blues guitar salvages ''Gotta Love It,'' which Perry and singer Steven Tyler wrote with outsider Mark Hudson. Cool tremolo-heavy guitar and Tyler's mandolin give texture to the syrupy ballad ''Crazy,'' co-written with the awful Desmond Child. (But give them all points for managing to pair the sappy - ''What can I do?/ I feel like the color blue'' - with the salacious - ''I know you ain't wearin' nothing underneath that overcoat.'')

Nothing can save the drippy ballad ''Cryin','' co-written by outside hack Taylor Rhodes. It's always best to save your stupidest lyrics for the rockers - a slow tempo gives plenty of time to digest tepid gruel such as ''I was cryin' when I met you/ Now I'm tryin' to forget you.'' Lenny Kravitz also was brought in to write with Tyler and Perry. ''Line Up'' proves this wasn't such a hot idea.

None of the new tracks is as riveting as ''Janie's Got a Gun'' or ''Monkey on My Back'' from Pump. But Aerosmith still out-rocks the competition on ''Eat the Rich,'' ''Get a Grip,'' ''Walk On Down'' and ''Fever.'' The socially conscious ''Livin' on the Edge'' is sort of Aerosmith's negative answer to the Scorpions' ''Winds of Change.'' The arrangement is overdone, with strings and the whole caboodle, but on the choruses, Tyler sings in a beautiful low register he uses all too seldom. The most interesting cut is the foreboding two-minute instrumental ''Boogie Man.''

There are enough full-bore rockers and emotive radio ballads to sell the album. And if CBS is lucky, the band just has a case of senioritis and will perk up when it changes labels. But if I were the guy who signed Aerosmith, I'd be pretty concerned about the low percentage of top-notch material on Get a Grip.